The Bad"It's not your fault. It's a terrible joke!" Maebe had her arms folded tightly while Thaw read her twitter DMs from Dawson out loud, and her face was twisted tightly to keep from laughing. "And you should tell him that! Tell him he has awful jokes and he's an awful person for it!"
Thaw flickered his orange eyes up at her for a moment, before turning back down to the phone to type with slow and careful taps of his claws. He did not, in fact, tell Dawson he was an awful person.
"He claims the reason you do not find this amusing is because you do not like dumb jokes."
"See?" She shrieked, her smile finally breaking. "Even he says the joke's dumb! Told you. Dumb dumb dumb. Tell him he needs better material." She slowly laid back down on her bed, lounging in a manner that Thaw could tell meant she was thriving on Dawson's attention. Another message popped up, and he read this one aloud.
"Dawson asks: Anyone visited or talked to you all?" He couldn't bring himself to say the word 'yall', no matter how much he wanted to help.
"Not yet, Thank
God." She huffed out, clearly annoyed at the mere idea. "I don't want visitors except you. Er. Him. You know what I mean. God, just tell him I said no." Thaw would have complied, if he hadn't already sent out Maebe's reaction verbatim, along with his own agreeing opinion. He looked up at her again, his molten face as flat and emotionless as ever, before turning back down to the phone. It was clear by the way he became engrossed in typing out long strings of conversation, that Thaw was no longer sharing the tweets with her. Maebe let it go for a minute or two, but her impatience got the best of her, and she started to eye him suspiciously.
"The ******** are you guys talking about?" She huffed out, her body tensing with a sudden worry. Thaw could read her body language, and typed out a quick, desperate request for another bad joke. He was instantly rewarded.
"I was filtering out the jokes to find a good one. Dawson states, How many lives does a nazi cat have? Nien." He didn't understand the joke, nor did he even think it was funny - which made him cringe when he realized he'd just said he was
filtering bad ones out. He waited in the silence for her to call him out on his lie, because he was a terrible liar and she
knew that, but.
"Haha. That little s**t." She giggled, pulling her pillow over her head when her face finally broke out into a grin. Thaw breathed in relief, and let Dawson know that this one had worked. Another joke came quickly, and Thaw siezed the opportunity.
"Maebe." He rumbled out. "Knock knock."
The pillow was pulled off of her head, and she cracked up with laughter. "God bless this a*****e, he's got you making knock knock jokes. Okay, I'll bite. Who's there?"
"Daisy."
Maebe's expression soured. "Daisy who?"
"Daisy me rolling, they hating." It was Thaw's deadpan, perfectly spoken without any slang, that made Maebe explode with sudden laughter. She was lost, and Thaw took advantage, speaking directly to Dawson for several minutes while she attempted to compose herself. For all he had done for the woman, Dawson deserved answers. Thaw felt compelled to give them to him.
He asked whether she still loved Otto and Cami. Thaw wished he could have lied and said she did not. Dawson would not understand the difference between loves that Maebe's heart had begun to compartmentalize. He would not understand that she had begun to consider love the equivalent of trust. And he would not understand that simply saying 'Yes' would grossly undervalue how she felt about those she actively hoped to pursue a relationship with. Namely, just him.
He would understand none of it, so Thaw did his best to be honest, without detail. He had never understood the workings of the human heart, himself. To try and explain the difference between the way she loved Otto and Cami, to the way she loved him, or Thaw, would be impossible for him.
So he didn't.
Quote:
She does. Just as much as she loves you and I. It is a very small group.
As if Maebe felt his sadness in the air, she'd sobered up and started to crawl up into his lap. She sat there, and Thaw felt the urge to hide the phone from her. He quickly stifled it for how ridiculous it was.
"What's he saying now?" She'd tilted her head up at him, and smiled in a way no one but him would ever be able to appreciate. The innocence, the trust in that smile. He pressed a hand to her cheek.
"What did Snow White say when she came out of the photo booth?" Thaw repeated another one of Dawson's jokes. "Some day, my prints will come."
Maebe fell into silence as she thought about it. Her mind wasn't putting together the word 'prints' as anything but 'prince'. "I don't get it." She muttered. "The ******** am I missing?"
Thaw paused to get Dawson's explanation, and then repeated it for her. "This is a Disney film. She sings a song about a prince-" Maebe reached up as far as she could go, and smacked Thaw in the face. "You tell him this, you tell him this exactly. Tell him I said
Oh my God I get that part, you
dork. I don't get the punch line. I wish I could punch him right now. That'll show him a punch line."
He heard it in her voice. He heard the soft lilt, the tender sweetness reserved for when she was speaking of someone that made her heart warm, and made her squirm. She only insulted the people she loved most.
He smiled, and tapped away on the phone.
"What do you call a belt made of watches?" Dawson had shared another joke. She rested her head back on Thaw, cuddled affectionately, and shrugged. He continued, "A waist of time."
"I got that one. These are so bad. Where are you pulling this s**t out from and also, also, why are you wasting so much time talking to me? This is supposed to be your free time away from my bullshit and you're the only one who's actually talking to me. You tell him that." She breathed, having fallen into a rant that she suddenly regretted. Dawson
was spending too much of his time on her, but if he stopped because she pointed it out..
If he stopped..
"He says he has the time, and the jokes are amazing. He has a massive book of funnies."
"He's got a massive something all right." She sneered out, the joke falling from her lips before she'd even thought about it. She snickered, even as she heard Thaw typing. She waited for the pause, before Thaw finally let out a sigh.
"You've made me speak to the boil about his p***s." He growled out in annoyance. She grinned up at him again, in that way that made his heart melt.
"I know. Thaw and Dawson, sitting in a tree. D - I - C - K JOKE MAKING." She sounded so damn proud.
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